Learning how to design good websites that fully meet the needs of your clients and stakeholders is tough. All clients have different needs, and different groups of site users have different desires. Here are six general principles that should help you make good decisions no matter what kind of site you are designing.
- Mobile Compatibility
Over half of the world’s internet browsing is completed with mobile devices. It is vitally important that websites are designed with mobile compatibility in mind. Sites need to be fully scale ready and contain little to no blocks of solid text, as these are hard to read on small screens. Google also takes mobile compatibility into account when ranking sites.
- Simplicity
The best websites are remarkably simple. Complex websites quickly lose user attention and perform poorly in SEO and marketing. Keep everything as simple as possible to convey your or your client’s message effectively. Ensure that navigation can be completed using the fewest number of clicks possible.
- Natural Patterns
Website users have been found to naturally scan pages in an F-shaped pattern. They read an entire horizontal line of text before moving down the page – paying a bit less attention to each following horizontal line of text or images. Your website should be designed with this in mind. Place the most important information in the top left corner. In Arabic and Hebrew, text reads from right to left, which means that the F shape needs to be inverted.
- Quality Content
Web design is only as good as the content actually contained within the design. Web design and site content can include written materials, games, illustrations, animations, and videos. Some websites also incorporate augmented reality content. Whatever the types of content featured on a website are, they need to be of high quality and contextually suitable. Hiring experienced copywriters is a must if you do not feel confident that you or your client can create the best-written content for your site.
- Metadata
Make sure that your website’s assets contain lots of metadata, and that site administrators can easily edit important metadata. Metadata is taken into account by search engine ranking algorithms, and is an important Search Engine Optimization tool that your client will undoubtedly request if you fail to include it from the ground up.
- Swift Load Times
It is more important now than ever before that a website loads quickly as soon as a browser accesses it. This is not just because consumer expectations for instantaneous access have become more demanding – even though they have. The most pressing reason why websites should load quickly is that load time is used as a ranking factor by the search engine giant Google. Google’s ranking algorithm assesses the speed at which a website loads when it ‘crawls’ that website. If it takes too long, Google will assume that the website has a poor User Experience and will rank it poorly. Your client wants a high-ranking website!
